Grants and Funded Projects

Depression Training to Promote Nurses as Advocates for Older Adults
(The Wellmark Foundation)
Principal Investigator: Kathleen C. Buckwalter, PhD, RN, FAAN

The training program proposed, Depression Training to Promote Nurses as Advocates for Older Adults, addresses an important and ongoing need among older adults who live in Iowa, our defined community. Depression is widely recognized as the most common and treatable of all mental disorders among older adults, but is regularly unrecognized and un- or under-treated. Late life depression causes considerable distress to both the older person and his/her family, causing emotional burden that is difficult to measure. More directly, late life depression is highly associated with excess disability, dysfunction, worsening of related physical health conditions, increased use of health resources, and in turn, increased health care costs. Depression is often the trigger to a downward spiral of mental and physical disability for older adults who experience multiple chronic health problems that require daily management, but are often neglected in the face of apathy, hopelessness, fatigue and loss of ability to experience pleasure caused by depression. Depression is also life threatening if unrecognized and untreated, as rates of suicide, by both direct and indirect methods, are the highest among older adults. In short, recognition and treatment of depression continues to be a priority for older adults throughout Iowa, as it is throughout the nation.

The need for a novel depression training program that targets care and treatment of older adults in Iowa, and that is accessible, affordable, and meaningful to the end-users, could not be more timely. Iowa’s older adult population is already large and rapidly growing. Iowa ranks 6th in the nation for having the largest proportion of older adults age 65 years and older, and is 1st in the proportion who are 85 years and older. Moreover, our aged population is anticipated to grow by 39% by 2020, while the overall population in Iowa grows only by 3%. Given that rates of depression among older adults are population based, clinically significant depression will only increase in the future. Regrettably, Iowa’s workforce is ill-prepared to identify and treat late life depression. Lack of mental health professionals is an on-going challenge statewide, and is particularly acute in Iowa’s many rural communities that have the highest proportion of older adults, and the lowest access to mental health professionals.